


Of Goblins And Knitwear

by CheseraFifthe



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Knitting, Slice of Life, Spoiler: Author has no idea how knitting works, Team as Family, Wildmount Campaign
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 03:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14127213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheseraFifthe/pseuds/CheseraFifthe
Summary: Nott gets a new hobby to curb the Itch and the Mighty Nein get new knitwear.





	Of Goblins And Knitwear

**Author's Note:**

> me, writing the last story: Nott's previous hobby was _totally_ knitting.  
>  me, writing this one: wait, now she sounds like Dobby the house elf.  
> also me: fuck it. i'm doing it anyway.
> 
> Could be considered part of that friendship universe I wrote, set before the collection story.

No one was very happy with Nott at the moment. They all sat in the Second Moon Tavern at a corner table, exhausted after a narrow escape from the accusations of the Crownsguard brought on by Nott’s petty theft habit.

 

“I’m _sorry!_ ” Nott apologized again, “the Itch came back and, and it was _right there_ and it was _very_ shiny–”

“Can’t you just, like, not do that?” Beau snapped, looking at Nott who was pressed into Caleb’s side. “Because I don’t like being watched all the time, Nott! Just, think about other things, or something? Get drunk? I don’t know, but this can’t keep happening!”

Caleb looked at Beau directly in the eyes, a clear warning because they all knew by now the sheer amount of ways magic could fuck someone over with just eye contact. “Drinking only curbs the habit so much, Beauregard. And an impulsive goblin is much more eye-catching than Nott as she is.”

“Maybe just she needs something to do.” Molly said. His chair was tilted precariously, feet on the table, idly shuffling his cards, watching Jester stack all of the unattended cups from other patrons into a precarious tower at an unoccupied table with a lazy fascination. “How about a hobby or something? Something that _isn’t_ collecting, perchance?”

Fjord, ever the peacemaker, jumped in before Beau could provoke Caleb further, turning to Nott. “Molly’s right. A hobby would work wonders for you, Nott! Is there anything you like to do now that we could help you turn into one?" 

“Well,” Nott said, tapping her claws against the mug in her hand, “I know a lot about alchemy, actually.”

“That’s–” Fjord started but was quickly interrupted by Caleb’s noise of protest, like a startled cat.

Caleb ran a hand through Nott’s hair, “Alchemy is both very lucrative and _very_ volatile. It is also very expensive to start. I would recommend not pursuing alchemy as a hobby until we have more funds and also a lab, or at least someplace consistent, to work from.”

“Alright, you’d know more about that than I would. Well what about–” Fjord looked around the tavern, deliberately ignoring Jester’s tower, eyeing both the inattentive barkeep and the patrons deep in their cups. “What about knitting? Yarn’s pretty cheap and you could make a _new_ collection of things _you_ created. Hell, you could even knit a new scarf for Caleb!”

Nott’s ears perked up from under Caleb’s hand, “I’d have to learn how to knit first, I think. But that sounds nice!”

 

Fjord beamed, “Good, good. I’m glad we had this talk.” That was all Fjord wanted to address as he hurried to run interference for Jester so they didn’t have a second encounter with disgruntled Crownsguard that day.

* * *

In the next town over, Nott met a halfling woman half-blind from old age, who offered to teach her how to turn wool into yarn, and how to knit the end product, in exchange for helping her shear the sheep she kept.

 

“It’s good for keeping the fingers nimble, even at my old age!” Loretta said in Halfling as they walked through town, her arm in the crook of Nott’s. “I knit that tea cosy in my kitchen just last year don’t you know!”

“Yes, auntie!” Nott agreed, proud of herself for finding someone willing to teach her. She was very glad she had the idea to learn to knit.

Loretta was a very nice woman who helped her through shearing, skirting, cleaning, dying, carding, roving, and spinning. Nott even got to keep a nice grey bundle of yarn that she learned how to knit with. She wasn’t very good but Loretta said she’d get better with more practice. Even though she was pretty inexperienced, she was deft enough to knit herself some sturdy napkin-sized squares of fabric. They were sewn into oversized ear-warmers that felt a little strange to wear. They were warm, though, and that was the point of them. When she finished learning, she bid Loretta goodbye. Loretta gave her an old drop spindle, carding brushes, and a batch of cookies, and sent her on her way.

 

Before she left town she purchased some new shears, some shiny knitting needles, and a couple of things to dye any new wool she came across. And a metal wash bin. All were given to Jester to put in the Haversack, and only the cookies were sacrificed in the name of storage space. They went instead to the stomach of a very happy tiefling.

* * *

 Nott continued to practice with the grey yarn that remained from Loretta, leaving her finished projects in the taverns they passed. As cool as it was to make new things (and to its credit it _did_ distract her from the Itch, if not as well as drinking did), her wool goods weren’t interesting enough to start a collection of them.

 

But yarn had to run out sometime and the Itch came back with a vengeance late at night in a tavern on the edge of the Empire. Before she could do something about the persistent need to steal, Jester burst back indoors.

“Nott! Nott! Guess what I found!” Jester called, bounding up to the table where most of them were. Fjord was calmly drinking some firewhiskey. Caleb was deep in a book, Frumpkin in his lap. Molly was performing a tarot reading for no one. Beau was across the room, arm wrestling with a large man with a bulbous nose.

“What did you find, Jester?” she asked.

“I found some sheep so you can make _more_ yarn!” Jester cheered.

Fjord looked up, “Oh no.” Jester pulled her to her feet, dragging her to the door. “Caleb? D’you wanna stop this?”

Caleb looked up from his book, blinking at Fjord, “What?"

“No? Okay. Jester? Jester? Jes–” The door swung shut behind the two of them. “And she’s gone. Gods dammit.”

 

Molly stood from his chair, sliding his cards across the table back into a neat deck and disappeared them in a blink. “I’ll go and keep an eye on them.” he called out as he headed after them.

* * *

The cool night air was perfect for sneaking about, Nott decided, following Jester to the sheep farm. It was well out of the way of any foot traffic and she wondered why Jester was so far out of town in the first place. And then she caught sight of a pink-powdered sheep and wondered no more.

 

“How much of this do you think you’ll need, Nott? There are a lot of fluffy sheep here and they all could probably use a shave, probably. They all look very sweaty under all the hair!” Jester peered above the fence, Nott right beside her peering through the gap.

A hand dropped on Nott’s shoulder, “Now girls–”

Nott shrieked, pulling out her crossbow and pointing it at the lavender tiefling with the sinister glowing grin.

“Molly!” Jester placed a hand over her heart, “You scared me! I was about to summon a lollipop to bash your head in!”

 

Molly squeezed their shoulders and continued. “It’s not polite to rob people of their livelihood. I’m going to have to ask that for every sheep that you shear you each donate, let’s say thirty gold. I’ll match whatever you pay and we’ll put it in this pouch.” He dangled a blue pouch with shimmery swirls and a yellow cord that magically appeared in his hands. “And then we’ll leave it for the nice people we’ve terribly inconvenienced. Sound fair?”

It did to Nott. She liked to be appreciated for her work, and Caleb always said that money made a good appreciation gift when you were bad at talking to people. “Yeah, okay!”

 

“And then we can break into their house to leave the pouch!” Jester said brightly, “Just like helpful money fairies!”

“Not what I would have suggested, but–Sure! So!” Molly clapped his hands together, eyeing the sheep, “Which one is first, Nott? You’re our wool expert after all!”

* * *

In the end, Jester summoned that lollipop anyway. To feed the sheep.

 

Molly helped hold the wool away from the roots as Nott delicately clipped it away, collecting it in large bunches set at the edge of the pasture. Nott figured that two sheep would have enough wool to last her a long while, but she was surprised with just how much that was. Molly also helped her with the skirting; cleaning the wool of matted areas, brambles and twigs, and sweaty patches. Molly hummed as he worked, telling her nonsense stories to pass the time.

Jester was very put out when she had to leave the remaining sheep that she’d been braiding with ribbons, _just_ to stuff the wool in the Haversack. She cheered up when Nott promised her that she would make her a gift out of the wool from these sheep.

Molly collected sixty gold from each of them and deposited his own coin in the blue sack, pulling the strings closed and turning to Nott. He directed her to a window in the two room farmhouse. She looked in; there was a banked hearth and a table right next to it, chairs pushed against the far wall. Nott pulled her Thieves’ tools out of her bag, and with two seconds worth of work the window was unlocked.

 

“Ready, Nott?” Molly asked, holding the bag out to her. She slipped through the window with nary a sound and took the bag from Molly, dropped it on the table, slipped back out and relocked the window with no one but the three of them the wiser.

* * *

The next few days were spent taking a bit of the wool at a time, cleaning and dying it with whatever she had at hand, and making yarn of it. Fjord even bought her a new satchel for her knitting yarn.

 

When she was satisfied, she decided that she’d work on a new cloak for Jester. She had some grass-green yarn that she used at the start, and when that ran out, she added on some salmon colored yarn. She was out of the salmon yarn by the time she was ready to make the hood, so she used a lot of blue-green yarn for the hood. Actually, she used all of it.

By the time she was finished the hood was as big as the body of the cloak, but it was actually kinda short for a cloak. It looked like a shawl, really. And it was all well made. She sewed the two together with a “borrowed” ribbon to tie it closed, and gave a few hard experimental tugs to the cloak, before deeming it finished. And then a carriage passed by at a slow trot, chiming with gleaming bells. She felt her Itch acting up. _It was like the universe was telling her to take the bells._

 

So she did.

 

Darting back and forth across the road, she snagged two or three bells at a time. When about a quarter were gone, she’d figured there’d be a noticeable difference in sound if she continued. She still had twenty or so bells though. She attached them all to Jester’s cloak because having a bell collection, no matter _how_ shiny, was just _asking_ for trouble.

 

And then she went to find Jester.

* * *

“Oh my gosh! _Nott!_ This cloak is _amazing!_ ” Jester gushed, the cloak spread-eagle and jingling, as she danced around the room.

 

“That’s a cloak?” Beau muttered, but not quietly enough as Jester whacked her with the cloak as she turned around to speak to her.

“Silly Beau! Of _course_ it is a cloak! See!” and she twirled the cloak with a flourish and pulled it around herself, tying the blue ribbon that nearly matched the blue of the cloak around her neck. The bells jingled against the small of her back. She pulled the hood down and it draped over her whole face.

“It is a little big, but that just makes it special!” Jester said, lifting the hood back so her face could be seen, a loop of yarn snagging on her horns a little.

“It does look very well-crafted. You did a good job, Nott.” Caleb said, patting her on the head. Nott beamed up at him.

“Very nice. Very artisanal.” Molly critiqued as he circled Jester, one hand at his elbow, the other at his chin. “Not colors I would’ve thought went together but they work, and I _love_ the bells. Still it's a little oddly proportioned, even for someone with horns.”

“I’m going to give it to Toilet, so he _always_ goes around in fashion!” Jester declared, untying the cloak and folding it over her arm.

“That’s probably a good call, Jester. The, uh, the cloak doesn’t exactly set the right image we’re trying to convey.” At everyone’s stares, he went through what he just said and winced. Nott’s ears drooped and Frumpkin’s eyes started to glow.

“Fjord’s just jealous that you didn’t make him anything, Nott!” Jester told her, glaring at Fjord from over Nott’s head as the goblin turned to look at him with large eyes.

 

“Yep. Yep. That must be it. I wanted something knitted for me like Jester has.” Between Jester’s glare, Nott’s large eyes, Molly and Beau’s smirks and Caleb’s expectant gaze, there wasn’t any other answer he could give.

* * *

Never had Fjord regretted an idea more than when Nott came up to him while he was people-watching in a sunny corner with Frumpkin, carrying her latest knitting project.

 

“They’re boot covers!” Nott declared, handing over a pair of wine purple socks that he was pretty sure were too big for normal feet. “Well they started out as socks, but they got a bit too big so now they go over your boots!”

Fjord chose not to point out that boot covers of any type would quickly get filthy from all the activities they did on a daily basis or waterlogged if they got even the slightest bit wet. Also wool collected stench from whatever it was brought around.

“They’re _wonderful_ Nott!” He said instead, feeling no guilt for the lie as she preened in that funny way she had. “They’re too pretty to wear everyday, so, um. I’m going to put this in my bag and wear it for a special occasion.”

Nott looked contemplative at that and he quietly panicked, hoping she wasn’t going to try _engineering_ a special occasion for him to wear them at. “I bet Beau must be jealous!” He said, well aware he was throwing his monk friend under the bus.

 

Beau needed to improve her people skills anyway. Call it her next lesson.

 

“After you gave that cloak to Jester, and’ve just given me these lovely boot warmers, she needs something too! And you could always use more practice right?”

Nott hummed in thought, “What color would Beau like?”

Fjord held in a sigh of relief that Nott took the bait, “Light blue. Like her vest.” He folded the socks away in his bag as Nott walked away, mumbling to herself about where she was going to get the dye for her next project.

 

He went back to his people-watching as Frumpkin dropped down from his sunny windowsill and out of sight.

* * *

Beau twitched at the little green hands thrusting a long, light blue, knitted _something_ at her. She thought about ignoring it, pretending she was watching Caleb's cat watch nothing, when Fjord kicked her under the table. She sighed.

“Hello, Nott. What d’you have there?” _Please be a scarf. Please be a scarf. Please be a scarf. Please–_

 

“I made you a gift, Beau!” Nott said, waving the knitted thing at her. She took it and let it dangle from her hand and examined it. It just brushed the floor where she sat, holding it just above her head. It was like a single, noodly sock. She’d heard from Fjord that Nott had an odd sense of what people liked to wear, but for the life of her she had no idea _what_ this was supposed to be. Unless it really was a scarf. 

“That’s great Nott. What is it, exactly?” She was afraid to know the answer, really. But Fjord was right there and he said that complimenting people was something she still needed to work on.

“It’s a staff-cosy!” Nott said, pulling her bō staff out from behind her tiny back and holding it steady as she slipped the blue knitted noodle over it. Beau looked to Fjord for any help or clarification or even an explanation.

 

Fjord sputtered around his whiskey, trying to choke out his laughter. Some help he was.

 

Beau was actually impressed that Nott had both stolen that from her side without her noticing, and hid it behind her when it was three feet taller than her. But she was still really confused as to why her _staff_ had the staff-equivalent of a _sweater_ on it.

“Okay? Why does my staff need a staff cozy? What’s it do?” Beau really couldn’t help asking.

“Well,” Nott rocked back on her heels, claws grasping the wool-covered staff. “It prevents you from burning or freezing if your staff gets either really hot or really cold. It can also make it so your hits create less damage, and I’m sure there are a lot of other things you can do with it if you just think outside the box!”

 

 _Now compliment her._ Said Fjord’s pointed stare. And then his equally-pointed clearing of his throat.

 

She stared at the staff for a long moment, wondering when doing _less damage_ with her staff would ever come in handy. “Well, at least it’s fitted well.”

The complement, lacklustre though it was, seemed to be all the encouragement Nott needed as she beamed and handed Beau back her staff.

Molly walked into the tavern. Took _one look_ at the sweater-covered staff. And walked back out. Beau could hear Molly’s laughter ringing from the outside. Her eye twitched. She stood up and stalked out of the tavern.

 

She took it back, she knew _exactly_ when dealing less-than-lethal damage would be useful.

* * *

Nott was running out of yarn when she turned her thoughts to Mollymauk’s gift. But before she could plan to use the rest of the wool in Jester’s Haversack, she came across a magic silver brush.

* * *

Nott fell in love with the silver hairbrush when she saw it being used by a human woman with long red locks and a very pretty dress. She might’ve been a princess in one of those stories Jester spun, if it weren’t for the very grumpy attitude she had, whining to her dwarf guard in a very shrill voice.

Nott looked into her bag. Besides her new buttons to add to her collection, she also had a bottle of ink, a spool of string, a pepper shaker, and a bowl of pudding she’d saved for later. That, plus her _Mage Hand_ and she had the workings of a viable plan.

 

Fifteen minutes, one incapacitated dwarven guard, and one stained dress later, and Nott was the proud owner of a new silver brush.

* * *

She’d collected it because it was shiny, but Caleb told her that it was charmed to detangle and make hair soft. He even offered to brush her hair for her to show her. Nott declined, already planning to use the brush as a carding brush for her latest batch of colorful yarns.

* * *

She got the idea for Molly’s gift when she caught him buying blankets from general store and distributing them, and his own, to the homeless vagrants he passed. He then bought a new blanket in a different color for himself.

 

Nott was pretty sure he kept giving his blankets away because they weren’t colorful enough. And as she had no shortage of colorful yarn these days, she decided that she’d make him a blanket that was colorful enough to keep.

She spent many hours knitting colorful little patches of magically-soft yarn, and when she felt she’d made enough, she decided to _really_ make it colorful and used her spare yarn to blend the colors together like a psychedelic daydream.

It was a very large blanket. Three times her height and five times as wide, and as soft as anything. Frumpkin would be sad to miss his favorite sleeping space, but she really wanted to see Molly’s reaction. She grabbed the corners, ready to pull it off the bed when the door opened and Caleb walked in.

“Caleb! I finished it! I think it’s done.” She told him. He gave the blanket another once over, sharp eyes and keen mind taking in the finished product and committing it to memory.

“Well done Nott, that is a very big project you have just completed! I’m sure that Mollymauk will love the gift.” He walked up to the bed next to her attempt at folding it into something less unwieldy.

 

“Do you want me to help you carry it downstairs so you can show it to him right away?”

“Yes, please!”

* * *

 “What is that?” Fjord asked incredulously, but before Molly could turn around his vision was smothered by dark cloth. It was very soft, knitted cloth that he bunched up in his fists, gently pulling it away from his face. He assumed that this was Nott’s gift to him. He’d seen her working on small little shapes of knit fabric, but out of respect for his goblin friend, he tended to put it out of his mind. Because no matter who it was for, it was always nice to be surprised and be able to give a genuine opinion.

 

Also, her gifts were hilarious. Jester’s horse cloak? Amazing. Beau’s staff-sweater? Priceless! He _wished_ he’d been there for the boot thing.

 

He blinked at the sudden sunlight, ignoring the giggling goblin and inspecting the very large blanket that she gave him. Depressingly normal idea, really. He was actually hoping for a tail-warmer or horn hats because _that_ would make people do a double take. But the colors! It looked like a rainbow threw up on it. He adored it already.

He carefully stood up, letting the blanket unbunch from his lap but holding it up before it could touch the floor. It was thin, but decently warm, especially for a tiefling that always ran hot in general. Where the sunlight filtered through it looked like it was pulled straight out of his drug-fuelled fantasies from when he was younger and drifting.

“Is this for me?” He asked in a faux-surprised voice, because Mollymauk Tealeaf needed to put on a show in all things.

“Yep! I worked hard so it would match your coat! And, and Caleb helped with the measurements so it was big enough!” Nott proclaimed, nodding up at the wizard that had sat down while he was distracted by his lovely new blanket. Frumpkin trilled at his feet, eyeing the technicolor blanket.

It didn’t _quite_ match his coat, there was more color in this for example, but, “It’s a work of _art_ , Nott! Thank you! And thank you for helping her Caleb. This is the best gift I’ve ever gotten.” It was the best gift he could remember anyway, but he figured that even before he lost his memories he’d never gotten a gift quite like this one.

He wrapped the blanket around himself, noting that it was bizarrely soft, like it was stolen from some wealthy family. If Molly hadn’t seen Nott knitting some of the pieces of this blanket, he would’ve thought she’d stolen it from the Trispires of Zadash. Well, that and no one would buy this headache-inducing riot of colors.

Just then Jester and Beau walked into the tavern. Jester gasped in delight.

“Oh gods! My eyes!” Beau yelled, covering her eyes with her hands after she looked at the more-technicolor-than-usual tiefling.

 

Molly grinned and resolved to keep this blanket forever, and use it everywhere he could. Especially in Beau’s line of sight.

* * *

Molly was a big help for her figuring out what to make the wandering barbarian woman.

 

“You want to know what Yasha likes? Yasha likes soft things that are easy to carry with her, Nott. I’m sure she’ll love whatever you make for her, but if it’s too out of place or constricting, than she’s likely to leave it with me while she goes off on her own. Her storm god takes her on many dangerous missions after all.”

Nott thought long and hard about what to make Yasha that she could keep and settled on some arm warmers. Something to keep that was soft, but allowed her hands to be free if she suddenly needed to reach for her sword.

Molly didn’t mind sitting patiently as she took a tape measure she pilfered a while ago to him. She wrapped it around his arm at the wrist and just before the elbow, writing those measurements down, and planned to add on a few inches to the circumference because Yasha was bigger than Molly. While knit had some give, it would be better to plan for that difference at the start instead of destroying it trying to put it on for the first time.

Yasha’s arm warmers would be a deep blue at the base, like some of the braids and beads in her hair, and would transition midway until it was a solid black at the wrist. Perfect if she accidentally got blood on them punching someone.

She knitted the fabric in between life-threatening adventures and then knitted a matching one, making them as identical as she could. Then she sewed them shut and stuffed them at the bottom of her bag. Then she put it to the back of her mind, forgetting about them for now as she played with Frumpkin, luring him away from her yarn bag.

 

Yasha came back about a week later, giving Molly a kiss on the forehead. Nott ran off to grab the arm warmers from her bag, and Molly pulled her forward in front of the large woman.

“Nott’s been making everyone gifts, Yasha!” Molly chirped, looking down at Nott in excitement. He’d guessed what she was making when he helped with measurements, but deliberately didn’t look after what she was actually knitting so it was a surprise to both of the ex-carnies.

“Oh?” Yasha peered down at her with mismatched eyes. She was still very intimidating, even if Nott knew, intellectually, that Yasha wouldn’t do anything to her unless she was actively, deliberately, being threatening. Still she was very big.

“I made you these!” Nott offered, almost hesitant as she held up the matching arm warmers. Yasha’s face brightened just slightly. She unlaced her leather bracers and giving them to Molly to hold, took the arm warmers from her carefully, and pulled them on one at a time. She rubbed the side of her face with one.

 

Yasha’s small smile felt like nothing less than a victory.

 

“Well?” Molly asked, tail swaying by his boots. “What do you think?”

“They’re very nice, Nott. I’ll wear them in any towns I pass. Everyone will be envious that they don’t have any cool arm warmers of their own.” She rested a calloused hand on Nott’s head. “Thank you. Really.”

 

Nott beamed.

* * *

Nott knew she wanted to knit Caleb a new scarf since she started her knitting hobby, but by the time she’d gotten enough practice to make it a really _good_ scarf, she figured it was a little boring. Scarfs took a long time, sure, but they weren’t all that challenging to make. So she decided to make him a set of mittens as well.

The problem was that Caleb still used fire spells as a lot of his repertoire and Nott didn’t want him to burn himself if the gloves caught fire. So she decided to challenge herself and make mittens with detachable finger-sleeves. And she sacrificed two of her nicest buttons to the cause. The scarf and mittens were a nice rusty red, and they took a total of two months to make.

* * *

This time they were lying low because Beau picked a fight with a person with _connections_. Nott was almost sure now that she was lying when she claimed that jails were not her favored terrain, because this happened with a suspicious frequency.

 

They were all quiet tonight as they realized again that for all of their heroic deeds, they hadn’t yet built up enough good will that they could come out the other side of the Empire unscathed. They were lucky it was Beau, really. At least she had that headstrong, cocky vibe about her and could pull of the drunkard routine with little effort by now. She had connections with the Cobalt Reserve, so it was more trouble than it was worth to disappear her or make an example of her.

And she was human. That probably helped.

 

Nott figured that this was as good a time as any to reveal her gifts to Caleb. He’d been particularly solemn lately though he wouldn’t say why. She reached into her bag and pulled the rust-red gifts into her lap.

“Caleb?” She tugged at his sleeve.

“What is it, Nott?” He turned away from his wary people-watching and looked down at her next to him, searching her for signs of distress.

“I finished my gift for you.” She was very proud of it, lifting it out of her lap and onto the cleared table. He lit up, smiling quietly as he carefully took off his scarf and folded it away, replacing it with the one she gifted him. Everyone watched with concealed interest; Caleb still got skittish with too many eyes on him.

“Oh sure, _he_ gets the normal gift.” Beau said, mulishly clutching her tankard and eyeing the new scarf with disdain.

“Go strangle yourself with your staff-cosy, Beauregard.” Caleb deadpanned, not even looking as he tugged on the mittens as well, smile growing wider at the mismatched buttons that decorated them.

Molly snickered quietly, still discreetly checking for unfriendly eyes on them.

“This is amazing Nott. I love it. You did an excellent job.” He gave her a hug from the side, holding her close for a moment before releasing her and going back to the room.

“You look, like, five percent better than you usually do, Caleb.” Jester confided, leaning across the table to get a better look.

“Thank you, Jester.” Caleb said, leaning away from the enthusiastic tiefling.

“Sit back down, Jester.” Fjord chided, dragging the tiefling back to her seat, “Low profile, remember?”

“But Fjord! Caleb needs to know he looks better without the shitty scarf he was wearing!” Jester protested.

“I like what I usually wear, Jester.” Caleb explained for what had to be the thousandth time, “But Nott spent such a long time on this, that it would be. Ungracious. If I did not utilize it. If my friend went out of her way to make me something that I will use. Something not too flashy. Well. I will be sure to wear it as often as possible.”

 

Later in their room, they sat next to each other on one bed. The mittens were put away for the night, but Caleb still stroked the scarf around his neck. Both watched Frumpkin mess with the yarn that Nott left lying around.

“Thank you, Nott.” Caleb said quietly, watching his cat gnaw at one of the wayward strings on the floor.

“You’re welcome, Caleb.”

* * *

  _**Nott! Nott wake up!**_

 

Nott was woken up by a panicked hiss of her name by her wizard. There wasn’t much light, but she could see the figure swathed in black in the doorway, tall and slender-shouldered with a five o’clock shadow. His knife pointed low in front of him. He didn’t look like he’d heard Caleb whisper, so she figured that Caleb had used his telepathy spell, something he was still getting accustomed to so he always had it on the mind.

The intruder might’ve thought he was being sneaky. _Could have been_ had he not chosen the room with the guy with the magic alarm and his friend who could take anyone out silently.

She blindly reached out and grabbed what felt like one of her bolts and threw it at the intruder, hoping to buy some time to reach for her crossbow. A knitting needle pierced the air. And the guy’s neck. _Whoops!_

 

“Caleb!” her panicky whisper sounded very loud in the quiet of the room, “Caleb I think I _killed_ him!”

Caleb sat up wide awake and scanning the room, absently brushing bits of blue and white eggshell off of the bed as he cast _Dancing Lights_ illuminating the four corners of the room.

When he could see, he gingerly got up and removed the knife from the guy, and checked his pulse. He lifted the guy’s head by his hair. _**A hired thug. You must have hit an artery.**_ He pulled the knitting needle out of the guy’s neck and it dropped into the yarn tangles.

Caleb started checking the thug’s pockets. For all that they were far more well-off than they were before, could take off tomorrow if they were so inclined and live comfortably for the rest of their days, they still went through people’s pockets. You never knew what you’d find. Speaking of, _**Find anything?**_

 

 _**Remember the person Beauregard ticked off this morning? He put a hit on her, and the rest of us as well. And this_ **_flachwichser_ ** _decided to take the contract.**_ Caleb looked almost calm, if you didn’t know him. The _Dancing Lights_ rattled in place and Frumpkin hissed from under the bed. His hands were shaking with anger. _**We need to get rid of the body and leave this town as soon as possible. Will you go wake the others?**_

 _**Yes Caleb.**_ Nott grabbed her crossbow and slipped on her mask, waiting for Caleb to move the body and redirect suspicion. The Mighty Nein had enough of a good reputation that a dead body in a room they stayed at could be the end of them, depending on how the death was spun. And Beau’s new nemesis had people on his side.

 

He hauled the body off of the ground, placing one of the limp hands over his shoulder, and put his free hand around the waist. He removed the hood and tucked it around his neck, hiding the still leaking throat with the dark cloth. He adjusted his stance, swaying in place like a drunk man and waved his hand, the _Dancing Lights_ disappearing. He walked out the door, cast a _Minor Illusion_ to create a tankard in his hands and a sleepy-drunk expression on the dead man’s face. And swayed out himself like all was right in the world.

Nott crept first to Fjord and Molly’s room, informing them of the assassination attempt. Fjord steeled himself like he was facing down yet another monster rather than a death-trap town.

Nott supposed they presented about the same levels of lethality actually.

Molly still smiled, but it wasn’t a particularly nice smile. It was the sort of smile that reminded you that no matter how genial he acted, he hunted monsters for a living and no small few of them looked human.

“Caleb is diverting attention,” she warned them as they quietly packed up their stuff. She then turned across the hall, ignored the _“Don’t come in, I’m naked!”_ from Jester and repeated herself.

Beau looked stricken, “I am _so_ sorry! If I had known I–”

Jester put a hand on Beau’s shoulder, “Don’t be sorry, he was a dick. Now come on, we should pack!”

Beau grimaced, “I-Yeah. Let’s grab all your stuff. This is a shitty town anyway.”

Nott turned and left but not before she heard Jester’s emphatic, if quiet, “I _know_ , right!”

 

When Nott got back to the room, all of the blood-soaked yarn was gone and Frumpkin sat where it once was.

_“Meow.”_

“Thanks Frumpy!” She scritched his ears. Nott knew that Frumpkin appreciated the yarn itself more than she ever did, and wasn’t surprised when, the second it was unwanted, it disappeared under her nose and into the ether. Frumpkin was a magic cat after all.

 

Nott packed up the remainder of Caleb’s things, wincing at the jumbled mess she made of it. She folded his scarf on top of it to cover it a bit, and hurriedly packed her own bag. She cast an eye over the room double checking for anything she might’ve left behind, jumping out the second story window when she found nothing of worth.

* * *

They made it out of that town no worse for wear. Beau’s latest nemesis couldn’t say the same, as in the morning he would find that he had a dick drawn on his face, and every other button picked from all of his clothing and any laces missing entirely.

Jester _absolutely_ needed to try this one pastry before they left and Nott needed to try it too. And if everyone else ignored that the bakeries were all closed this late and they were headed to the residential district?

Well, what can you do about sudden late night pastry cravings?

 

Beau had a smile on her face for the rest of the week, though, and that’s what’s important.

* * *

Nott was out of yarn and actually rather bored of knitting, when she met a little shepherd girl down on her luck.

 

“Hello there little girl! My name is Nott, er, Nott the Halfling! Has anyone ever taught you how to knit?”

The little girl peered up at her from where she was sitting under a tree, watching her flock, “My name is Essie, and no I haven’t.”

“Well, Essie, I’ve been told that it’s a great way to make a living! It keeps your fingers nimble if you didn’t know!”

 

Nott taught her how to clip the sheep and skirt the wool. How to clean it and dye it, this time dandelion yellow. How to card it, rove it, and spin it into yarn. When the little girl had a sizable ball of yarn Nott taught her a few basic stitches, staying until she had a sizable piece of yellow knit fabric.

Nott left the little girl with the metal wash bin she dyed her yarn in, the used sheep shears, Loretta’s old carding brushes and drop spindle, and a set of well-cleaned knitting needles. Then she reached up and patted the little girl’s head and walked away.

 

She still kept the silver brush though.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Frumpkin is a fey cat, and like all fey can tell how honest someone is. The practice projects Nott left, Fjord's boot covers, and Beau's staff-cosy all disappeared into his pocket-dimension nest. Along with the soft, if bloodied, yarn explicitly mentioned.


End file.
